Naughty Canine cancels its The Final of Us multiplayer recreation

Naughty Canine introduced Thursday that it’s canceled the multiplayer recreation it was constructing in The Final of Us universe.

The studio says it has been in pre-production on The Final of Us On-line even whereas engaged on The Final of Us Half II. “We have been enthusiastic in regards to the route wherein we have been headed,” in line with a weblog publish in regards to the information.

Nevertheless, “to launch and assist The Final of Us On-line we’d should put all our studio sources behind supporting publish launch content material for years to return, severely impacting growth on future single-player video games,” Naughty Canine says. “So, we had two paths in entrance of us: grow to be a solely stay service video games studio or proceed to give attention to single-player narrative video games which have outlined Naughty Canine’s heritage.”

Clearly, Naughty Canine is choosing the latter path — it additionally says it has “a couple of” large new single-player title within the works.

The Final of Us On-line growth already gave the impression to be in some hassle, as Naughty Canine introduced a delay to the sport in Might shortly after Bloomberg reported that Sony was re-evaluating the sport’s route. (In that very same delay announcement, Naughty Canine additionally revealed it was engaged on a “brand-new single participant expertise.”) In Kotaku’s October report about Naughty Canine shedding some contractors, the publication mentioned that The Final of Us’ On-line was “mainly on ice.”

The cancellation of The Final of Us On-line provides to Sony’s broader pushback of its stay service ambitions. As an alternative of releasing 12 stay service video games by March 2026, it now solely plans to launch six.

Sony and Naughty Canine’s The Final of Us Half II Remastered can be launched on January nineteenth, 2024. The second season of the hit HBO present is ready to debut in 2025.